LITERATURE REVIEW of the effectiveness of online recruitment

Online recruitment uses internet to find people to jobs. Fundamentally, it is advertising vacancies on the job sites or corporate websites. At this basic level it is particularly effective at getting a greater level of response. While it may generate lots of applications than traditional print advertising, simply attracting more candidates is only the part of the job. The current state is that truly effective online recruitment can be as low as 10 percent of the top blue-chip corporate companies.

The original strength & power of online recruitment is when it is done properly, lie in controlling internet technology to not just attract the candidates but to deal with them also. In this sense it is also about streamlining the recruitment process, so busy human resource departments can give a good recruitment service to their colleagues in finance, marketing, sales and manufacturing and moreover it frees up more of their time for other potential tasks.

A specialized software provider such as Human Resource Portal can develop bespoke application programmes for recruiters that will save their time, effort and financial resorces. They can automatically perform the pre-selection process by setting ‘killer questions’ (that only top candidates could answer correctly), profiling and scoring, psychometric tests and automatic CV scans to look for key areas such as qualifications and experience

What some companies and what u think of e rec-current thinking

Those companies that use online job application systems, instead of traditional recruitment methods can get a greater number of applicants aged over thirties and premium quality candidates overall, according to new research.

The research done by academics in Ireland and by Eastern Kentucky University in the U.S was presented a week ago at a conference of British Psychological Society.The study mainly focused at concerns that the huge rise in the use of e-recruitment practices over recent years had decreased the number of applications from older & female candidates.Studies conducted over the past 4 years, the research of more 3,000 people applying for administrative posts in Irish Civil Service compared the type of population applying when the application process was was done through e-recruitment and paper – based method.The survey found that the number of elder applicants (aged 30 – 60 years) increased with the practice of the internet selection systemThere was no change on the number of females applying for various posts but the overall quality of candidates was have improved.Number of candidates on selection tests were higher for online applicants than pre-online applicants.Results also proved that the new media could widen the diversity of people attracted to it, and brought into, organisations, said the BPS.The society’s conference heard researchproving that employees perform better at work if they have better psychological health and if their department heads show them good commitment.The study was conducted by Professor Cary Cooper, of Lancaster University Management School and the director of Manchester-based consultancy Robertson Cooper, and included 16,000 employees aged between 16 and 60 across 15 different firms.Participants filled a questionnaire created to assess their levels of stress at workplace, rating their perceptions of work stressors, organizational commitment &their health.

Professor Cooper told: “We found that the employees who rated their performance mostly had a better psychological health and rated their organizations for showing greater commitment to them. This shows that employers’ investment in the well-being of their employees is not just a moral obligation; it also pays dividends in context of productivity and profitability.”The conference also heard research showing that the employees who feel strong emotional bond to the organization are most likely to be willing to recommend the organization to others and help the operation succeed.Other research, by an occupational psychologist David Sharpley, was based on a survey of more than thousand people working in a local government.Main aspects of the management behaviour, along with the perception that the organization supported employees development, were found to have been critical in creating a strong emotional bond & sense of engagement.Employees who felt that they were performing meaningful work, and who were clear about the role they were fulfilling were most likely to be higjly motivated.Employee engagement has a direct effect on the productivity, so it is important for the managers to understand the factors that help us to build engagement & the barriers that stifle it,” said Sharpley.This study conveys that how important it is that people should know what they are doing, why they are doing it & should feel that their personal development is supported by their management,” he added.

PRACTICE OF E-RECRUITMENT.

There has been a huge increase in e-recruitment as compared to as before. Since middle of 2006 in the UK, E-recruitment have increased more than 40% from the previous year. While the trend for online recruitment has been expanding. Over half of the respondents agree that the quality of online applications is very hit and miss. (26.1%) disagree with this statement, which suggest that online recruitment is a better strategy for omly certain roles. Although there is a trend in favour of online recruitment, the results show that there is still a high level of constrains with regard to the ability of online recruitment to attract high quality and diverse candidates. Most of the organizations clearly have a long way to go in developing an online recruitment strategy. While there has certainly been a shift in recruitment and assessment being done online,ourresults suggest that online is only a single aspect of resourcing strategy and a mixed strategy with a mix of media is still proving most effective.

Current state of Online Recruitment System

The numbers of e-recruitment sites seem to multiplying day by day as it is facilitating the recruitment process in more than one ways. Initially, it was observed that this process was embraced by big IT firms but now, it is becoming the part of every organization in business world.

The advantages and disadvantages of online recruitment

The advantages of online recruitment

Cost effective

Pasting a job vacancy on your own company website does not cost you anything, while putting on a job board usually costs a couple of hundred pounds . When you consider that a recruitment consultant fee for a candidate could be anything up to 20% of the first year’s salary, and that advertising in a national newspaper can cost thousands, you can immediately see the cost savings with online recruitment.

Online recruitment is quick

A job vacancy can be put on a job site in the morning, the first applications arrive by lunchtime, and a candidate is interviewed by end of the day. Of course It isn’t often like this. But the fact that such things happen quickly gives us an indication of just how quick E-recruitment can be.

Online recruitment gives you a better chance of success

Traditional print advertising – whether national, local or trade press – faces limitations: the success of a vacancy advertisement depends on people looking upon the ad on a particular page and in a particular issue. Online recruitment is completely different. A job vacancy advertisement on a website is there 24 X 7 ,for as long as you desire. Candidates can come back to it again and again. From office administrator to Financial Director: they are all online.

Online recruitment gives you a bigger audience

Many people who are new to online recruitment think that using job sites is only effective if you are looking for young net-savvy Facebook-type people. This simply isn’t the case. Research consistently shows that the average age of candidates using job sites is around 35 years old.Online recruitment is now a standard part of most people’s job hunting regardless of the age.

Online recruitment is easy.

Posting a job on your own site is easy enough. Most of the job sites and CV databases are very user-friendly and you don’t need to have vast knowledge of IT to post a vacancy advertisement. Usually, all you need is your job description, a bit of time and a credit card. And, if you have any problems the job board sales team to help you. 

The disadvantages of online recruitment

Too many candidates

It is a fact that dealing with irrelevant and bad candidates is the main problem of a HR manager. Spam candidates can waste lot of time. However, with a bit of thought about what job site you use, how you write your job description and using candidate screening and filtering tools on job boards, it is possible to reduce the number of irrelevant applicants.

It won’t always work

Online recruitment doesn’t work every time. Every job vacancy cannot be posted or filled online. There will always be difficult-to-fill jobs that can only be filled by recruitment consultants, headhunters or in other ways. However, most companies tend to hire for pretty standard job roles so this is seldom an issue. And with more and more job seekers choosing the internet to look for jobs, and more and more job sites and job boards specializing in ever more diverse areas, those difficult-to-fill jobs are becoming less day by day.